Telling You The Truth.

I haven't received any more DVDs from the West Coast yet to do any more Report Cards, so in the interim I'm going to attempt to regale you with a very timely story.
It's one in which I am at the same time tangentially and intrinsically involved.
I get this cable channel here called Buzzr.
It's all old game shows.
Some really old.
Like black-and-white old.
The original "What's My Line?" "To Tell The Truth" and I've Got A Secret".
I loved and love those shows and Tivo them regularly.
In the 90's, the Game Show Network used to do the same thing.
And I saw all of them.
But so much time has passed that I don't remember any individual episode.

Allow me to digress here.
I have a friend, Barry, who has a friend who had claimed that in 1961, he and his parents all appeared on "To Tell The Truth" in one episode, each as liars in each of the three games. The friend was about ten years old at the time.
This seemed to be the kind of stunt casting that "To Tell The Truth" never indulged in.
He was met with at least mock skepticism by his friends.
This was roughly akin to my claiming that I played Rusty B Company on "Rin-Tin-Tin"
But I knew I was lying, and nobody believed me either.
However, he was obsessive about it to the point that his friends started to believe him.
He had conducted a fruitless 35 year old search to track down this episode, all the more difficult because it aired live.
Barry had told me about this quest some time in the 80s and it stuck with me.
Then, in the 90s, when the Game Show Network was airing "To Tell The Truth", I saw what I thought was this episode.
I called Barry and asked "Was this family named "Elder"?
It was.
I mailed Barry the VHS tape. That was what we were dealing with then.
On young Elder's birthday, they threw him a party at his home.
No mention of the tape.
Barry without warning, popped this tape into young Elder's VCR.
Young Elder was now in his early fifties.
The show started, Young Elder saw his father, long since passed away, on the show.
He immediately broke down into uncontrollable tears.
In the second game, he saw his mother, also long since gone.
He was mush.
Then he saw himself in the third game.
After regaining his composure, he asked how the tape was found.
My name was then bandied about.
Young Elder was then the City Manager of Worthington, Ohio. A suburb of Columbus.
I was offered the key to the city, which was worthless because it didn't open anything.
But if I ever wanted a slave, he volunteered to be mine.
I didn't really want a slave, but I appreciated the gesture.
I apparently not only made his day, I made his life.
The reason this is timely now is that just yesterday, Buzzr reran that episode of "To Tell The Truth", and reminded me of how much I contributed to somebody's happiness.
I don't get to do that too often.


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My books ,"Show Runner" and it's sequel, "Show Runner Two", can be found at the Amazon Kindle Store.
Along with the newer ones, "The Man Is Dead", and "Report Cards".
They are all compilations of blog entries that have since been removed from the blog.
So this is the only way you can find them.
You can search by typing in my name, Cindy Williams, Laverne and Shirley, The Odd Couple, or Happy Days.
Check them out.
You don't need a Kindle machine to download them.
Just get the free app from Kindle, and they can be downloaded to an IPhone, IPad, or Blackberry.
The paperbacks, "Mark Rothman's Essays" and my new novel, "I'm Not Garbo" are not
e-books. But they are available for people without Kindle.
I have many readings and signings lined up for those, and the thing about Kindle is you can't sign one. If you'd like one of the paperbacks, personally autographed, contact me at macchus999@aol.com.

And now, we've got my reading of my "Laverne and Shirley Movie" screenplay on YouTube.